Blog: Our family’s special day now remembered for the wrong reason

Christina Muge is the Senior Communications and Advocacy Officer at World Vision Solomon Islands. Read how the devastating floods of early April that struck the capital, Honiara and the nearby Guadalcanal Plains area affected her and her family.

April 3 is a special day of celebration for my family; it’s my oldest son’s birthday. I woke up in the morning and, as usual, hugged my son and wished him a Happy Birthday – he turned 10 this year. I gave him his presents before getting ready for work.

It was raining heavily that morning. On my way out of the house I noticed pools of water around the yard and the drain in front of our house was starting to flow like a river.  One of the bridges I cross on my way to work floods sometimes when it’s been raining a lot, so I decided to work from home. I didn’t want to risk getting stuck on the other side of the bridge. It wasn’t until 2pm that I came outside the house again to check on the level of the river that runs few meters from my house. To my surprise, the river was almost level with the ground. I immediately called my husband to tell him the river was starting to overflow.  I ran back into the house and quickly packed a few clothes for my baby and our important documents.  My husband arrived and loaded the kids into the car while I was still up in the house.

The river overflowed and came in so fast that, as soon as I stepped out of the house, the water was already up to my knees. We quickly left the house and as we drove out I saw a lot of people on the road trying to run from the flood. Some had packed bags while others just carried their children and whatever they could get hold of. People escaped anyway they could – on foot, in tractors, trucks, motorbikes or cars. My family and I found shelter at a friend’s place, about five kilometres away, in Tetere.

I went back to our house two days later to find it full of thick mud up to knee height with some of our personal items stolen. The entire landscape of our yard is now an empty field with no plants flowers.

I can clearly remember the feeling of hopelessness seeing all the mess. It was made even worse by losing our personal items to thieves.

It took me and my family a very tiring, back-breaking two weeks to dig out mud that was knee deep using just spade and buckets. We finally clean up the mud and other debris from the house but we can never clean out or forget the experience of the floods.

My son missed out on his birthday cake this year and never got to enjoy a Happy Birthday.

One of the best days of celebration in our life is now going to be remembered also for the frightening experience of the floods raging through our community.

But the most important thing is that my family and I survived the flood and we are safe.